Use of healing magic is dependent on exploiting use of healing magic.
If you keep having encounters where you don't need to heal, you keep going until you do. Or maybe run out of spells. This allows you to get more done, faster, then a group without healing.
What your first crew did is not take advantage of healing magic, instead having either good luck, prudence, or a limited number of possible encounters.
As you get higher level you will start seeing the need, simply because the offensive power of the enemy starts ramping up fast, and/or the number of potential encounters increases.
As your experience with Team 2 illustrated. It all depends on the game you play.
Note that HAVING ACCESS to healing magic is the important thing which can turn high fantasy...not just using it all the time. A social campaign where fighting is limited may use little healing, but the fact it is available is probably defining.
As a test, simply take away the power to heal, and see what it does to the pace of the campaign and outlook of the team. It will be significant.
==Aelryinth
I personally believe the defining point of low magic is access to healing.
As you slide the scale from no healing magic to frequent healing magic, you move from low to high fantasy. Nothing else is as important.
If you've another 'break point', please say so. But I believe healing is the magic that, if removed, has the greatest effect on the low/high feel of a fantasy setting.
Healing is a Critical point, yes- maybe even the most critical point if you include condition removal, etc.
But Transportation magic, esp Teleport etc is another Critical point.
Magic damage, oddly, is not.
Think about this. Why does everyone want to play PATHFINDER? Not Iron Heroes?
Magic is a integral part of PF.
In my experience they want to play Pathfinder because they don't want to have to learn another system. That seems to be a daunting thing for a lot of people, for some reason. They are happy to play in low magic (or even no magic) campaigns, as long as they use the Pathfinder system.
Except that people went from 3.5 to PF- learning a "new system" (to a minor extent). And Iron Heroes is D20. If you can handle the rather small system differences between 3.5 and PF, then you can handle IH.
Games can be fun even when character death occurs. In fact, some of the most fun games I've played in involved character death as a central theme - Paranoia, for example, doesn't work without the idea of seeing whether or not you make it to the end of the adventure before all of your clones comically die.For all those complaining Raise dead is too easy:Oh yeah.
Players: “Hey Bob, we have to go on a quest for about 4 nites of gaming in order to raise you, so I guess you can just stay home or you can play my Mount.”
Bob: “yeah, sounds like real fun. Look, instead- here’s Knuckles the 87th , go ahead and loot Knuckles the 86th body. He's got some cool stuff."
The whole idea of “death should mean something” becomes meaningless when we all realize that D&D is a Game, Games should be Fun, and in order to have Fun you have to Play. Thereby, when a Player’s PC dies either you Raise him or he brings in another. Raising is preferable story-wise, and costs resources. Bringing in another costs continuity and actually increases party wealth. Not to mention, instead of an organic played-from-1st-PC we have a PC generated at that level, which can lead to some odd min/maxing.
The third alternative is “Sorry Bob, Knuckles is dead. You’re out of the campaign, we’ll let you know when the next one is starting, should be in about a year or so.’ Really?
Sure. But when PC death occurs the only real choice is Raise Dead or bring in another character. Agreed? You dont make someone stop playing do you?
so- like I said "Thereby, when a Player’s PC dies either you Raise him or he brings in another. Raising is preferable story-wise, and costs resources. Bringing in another costs continuity and actually increases party wealth. Not to mention, instead of an organic played-from-1st-PC we have a PC generated at that level, which can lead to some odd min/maxing."
I mean, if a PC dies every level, and you get to level 10 with everyone bringing in a new PC, you have a "The ship of Theseus" paradox, as likely no one has the same PC the campaign started with.
This does hurt continuity.
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Raising is preferable story-wise, and costs resources. Bringing in another costs continuity and actually increases party wealth.
this is an assumption. raising isn't necessarily preferable story wise. you don't know my story. it might actually make more sense in the story to move on... and if the characters in your story never meet anyone new, my willing suspension of disbelief is challenged. adventurers in novels meet new people all the time. the entire group isn't always just together from the start. also, there's no reason you have to let party wealth get ridiculous as a GM... that is your choice.
Not to mention, instead of an organic played-from-1st-PC we have a PC generated at that level, which can lead to some odd min/maxing."
this doesn't necessarily matter. it is your opinion that this is bad.
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I personally believe the defining point of low magic is access to healing.
As you slide the scale from no healing magic to frequent healing magic, you move from low to high fantasy. Nothing else is as important.
If you've another 'break point', please say so. But I believe healing is the magic that, if removed, has the greatest effect on the low/high feel of a fantasy setting.
Healing is a Critical point, yes- maybe even the most critical point if you include condition removal, etc.
But Transportation magic, esp Teleport etc is another Critical point.
Magic damage, oddly, is not.
Indeed, teleport is a huge and powerful thing. Teleportation makes your town the entire world, and you can laugh at the laws of kings and tyrants who simply cannot keep up with you if you choose not to let them.
However, assuming teleportation is limited to those who can cast it, the overall effect on a world will be minor. For individuals, it can be a defining thing, being able to walk out the door and into a city a thousand miles away. For society as a whole, it will be a 'meh' thing, because those who can teleport are outnumbered thousands to one by those that cannot and never will.
Permanent teleportation is also a huge security risk. So mass movement over distances like that is likely to have many, many folk opposed to it, especially those who don't like the idea of an uninvited army of foreigners. You'd have to have permanent teleportation circles and a lot of high level characters before this would actually start messing with a campaign.
But, yes, teleportation is Fantasy's version of hyperdrive and warp drive...the ability to get to a place fast, without having to slog through every stop on the road in between. How much is there is often one of the defining marks of high fantasy.
==Aelryinth
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Use of healing magic is dependent on exploiting use of healing magic.
If you keep having encounters where you don't need to heal, you keep going until you do. Or maybe run out of spells. This allows you to get more done, faster, then a group without healing.
What your first crew did is not take advantage of healing magic, instead having either good luck, prudence, or a limited number of possible encounters.
As you get higher level you will start seeing the need, simply because the offensive power of the enemy starts ramping up fast, and/or the number of potential encounters increases.
As your experience with Team 2 illustrated. It all depends on the game you play.
Note that HAVING ACCESS to healing magic is the important thing which can turn high fantasy...not just using it all the time. A social campaign where fighting is limited may use little healing, but the fact it is available is probably defining.
As a test, simply take away the power to heal, and see what it does to the pace of the campaign and outlook of the team. It will be significant.
==Aelryinth
There were healers in that party he just never saw a need to take steps in that direction himself. I have played in a few scenarios without a healer the group dynamic didn't change that much from what I saw although admitedly one of modules for PFS or gritty games like call of Cthulu are possibly not the best choice for comparison.
As has been said though its not so much healing magic as healing access that is the issue. I've been reading ruler of the land manga recently and there's a scene where the main hero destroys his ability to use ki in order to not kill the woman he loves. Then he gets given a rare medicine (entirely natural made from rare plants) and is instantly restored to full health. Of course this is the same guy who's blown himself up twice as a result of being turned into a living bomb by an expert on explosivess but still the point stands. Perhaps we need to get rid of clerics? They're too powerful anyway with that armoured casting grin.
Instant teleportation does change the dynamic but so does flying. The thing is there are ways to handle it if your willing to change the society and how they handle things, particularly if you use older ideas.
Teleportation
1) Any major emplacement is made with basilisk blood so teleporting into or out of it turns the person trying it stone.
2) Permanent redirect teleport so the stoned person winds up in a dungeon and their gear goes somewhere else.
3) Permanent teleportation circles can only be built in specific highly secured locations or outside city limits. The farmer goes onto the circle outside Melanon and emerges outside Tambrook. It still cut 3 months off his travel time allowing fresher produce to reach the mountain mining city but at the same time any army coming through is still well outside the city walls.
Flying
1) No open courtyards at the very least their covered with wires to prevent flying creatures of a certain size getting in.
2) An earlier development of air defenses e.g. areial cavalry and weapons that fire up rather than out.
and so on.
Personally I do tend towards the whole only 1% of the population can use magic and my societies often change sometimes fairly significantly because of it.
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Pathfinder overprices magical defenses because it doesn't want to take the fun of using those options away from spellcasters.
Having areas where you can't fly, teleport, summon monsters, or charm the natives into slavery is badwrongfun because of that.
meh. In any real world, defending against magical flight and teleporting would be far easier then actually being able to do such stuff.
==Aelryinth
Having areas where you can't fly, teleport, summon monsters, or charm the natives into slavery is badwrongfun because of that.
I can't tell if you mean to be stating your opinion or what you believe to be the design philosophy behind Pathfinder.
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Any major emplacement is made with basilisk blood so teleporting into or out of it turns the person trying it stone.
I'm OK with these sorts of sledgehammer solutions if the game world is logically made to reflect them. In this example, every major city should have whole breeding centers and hatcheries for basilisks, all of them carefully blinded at birth, so as to ensure a continuous supply of something that, according to the rule outlined, is essential to the functioning of society.
I even take it a step further, and notice that the landscape is strewn with castles and dungeons, none of which serve any purpose whatsoever (and are in fact an impediment to your health, given the existence of the earthquake spell). Solution 1: eliminate castles and dungeons. Solution 2: give them a function (in my case, X thickness of stone blocks teleportation and scrying effects).
If you can tie in the mechanics you need with the game world you're looking for, you end up with a better-integrated setting than if you add mechanics with little attention to how they would really influence the setting.
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The Zeitgeist AP (3rd party) has the rule that unbroken circuits of gold foil all teleporting. So, you can stop a mage using dimensional shenanigans by putting a gold bracelet on them, stop entry/exit via dimensional shifting into an area by running a gold thread through the walls around it.
A nice non-magical solution.
==Aelryinth
Any major emplacement is made with basilisk blood so teleporting into or out of it turns the person trying it stone.I'm OK with these sorts of sledgehammer solutions if the game world is logically made to reflect them. In this example, every major city should have whole breeding centers and hatcheries for basilisks, all of them carefully blinded at birth, so as to ensure a continuous supply of something that, according to the rule outlined, is essential to the functioning of society.
I even take it a step further, and notice that the landscape is strewn with castles and dungeons, none of which serve any purpose whatsoever (and are in fact an impediment to your health, given the existence of the earthquake spell). Solution 1: eliminate castles and dungeons. Solution 2: give them a function (in my case, X thickness of stone blocks teleportation and scrying effects).
If you can tie in the mechanics you need with the game world you're looking for, you end up with a better-integrated setting than if you add mechanics with little attention to how they would really influence the setting.
as a corollary, the raising of basilisks would likely spread and their commonality increase as some escaped captivity, which would probably spur the development of easier anti-pretrifaction defenses.
In FR, if you brought out the properties of a skydrop gem, you were immune to being petrified as long as it was next to your skin. Nice and easy.
Or you could get a magic item that duplicated the Steadfast Gaze of psionics, and be immune to gaze weapons.
==Aelryinth
I actually find the baked-in countermeasures to be sufficient. Things only get really out of hand if you let players take the details of scry and teleport for granted instead of actually going through the motions.
I also just stop expecting the game to behave the same way when these spells are available.
Low magic can be fun depending on the setting. The setting that I'm in we call the Greek campaign. It's based on Greek mythology. We've got one barb/cleric, two fighters and one character who's a descendant of Aphrodity. She's the only one who can use magic.
Low magic? Kirke was all baleful polymorphing all over the place. Though oracles all seem to get the worst end of things--all curse, no real upside.
At this point I'm of the mood that I'll use the Beginner Box or D&D 5e as my go-to for low magic games, although with Five Moons coming out next year I may switch over to that. 5e, so far, seems to lend itself to Fantasy adventure, as opposed to superfantasy adventure, more than Pathfinder.
Very interesting conversations and ideas!
I've put together a list of those categories that participate in creating a Low Magic setting. I am looking for feedback to complete the list and make it as helpful as possible.
I just wanted to throw the Low Fantasy Gaming RPG into the mix here (disclosure: I wrote it!).
https://lowfantasygaming.com/2016/05/
It's a D&D variant, OSR/modern hybrid, single magic using class (amalgamated spell list), low magic/dark & dangerous magic, 4 martial classes (bard, barbarian, fighter, rogue), martial exploits, 12th level max, gritty/injuries, roll equal or under attribute for misc actions, reroll pool, luck mechanic, party retreat mechanic, fun chase rules, and more.
Free PDF at the link for those who might be interested. Hope you can find something useful in there.
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For me, low-magic actually means that the campaign world is MOSTLY mundane: no magic shops, few real wizards/clerics, no friendly NPC casters above 3rd level and even those are few, etc. Leaders of nations are likely to be 5th-7th level, mostly NPC classes. Magic items are hoarded and hidden when not being used, most common people resent and fear spellcasters for their power, and magic is generally dangerous even when it's being beneficial.
The PCs get to be the exception to that rule: They are the heroes after all, they can have all the magic they can get their hands on. They just have to be wary of the dangerous bits, and know that most of the magic in the world is being safeguarded by their adversaries.
So the only truly magical, truly powerful entities in my campaign world are the PCs and their potential foes. The players want to portray "big damn heroes", so let them have their fun.
A 3rd level PC fighter should be a local hero.
At 5th level, he should command the respect of the nobility as a fine mercenary.
A 7th level PC fighter should be a great and accomplished warrior recruited by kings and princes.
At 10th level, he should be leading armies in battle and deciding the fate of nations.
At 15th level, he should be invading and exploring the most dangerous areas in the world, and thwarting world-ending plots.
At 20th level, he is a hero of legend and fame, struggling against the gods themselves.
A 3rd level PC wizard should be constantly pestered by villagers looking for help and the local nobles should be spying on her.
At 5th level, the local nobles are too afraid to cross her and scheme for her favor, while the villagers avoid her out of fear.
At 7th level, the nobles avoid her except in times of dire need, and do their best to appease her when they draw her attention. Heads of state are keeping an eye on her, and other wizards are trying to steal or tap into her knowledge/power.
At 10th level, Kings and princes play the dangerous game of trying to corral her power for their own ends, or else possibly scheme to destroy her if she is too difficult to deal with. Other wizards in her territory may challenge her for supremacy.
At 15th level, Nation-states will appease her rather than risk her wrath. Jealous hostile wizards seek to destroy her. She spends most of her time exploring extra-planar realms and weird, dangerous parts of the world.
At 20th level, she is utterly unchallenged on her home world, feared and shunned for her unspeakable power, and interacts mostly with mighty entities from other dimensions.
A 3rd level good-aligned PC cleric will be beset by villagers asking for small blessings and advice, and called upon by the nobility to provide healing.
A 5th level cleric may have a noble patron, and be called on to minister to the great and good. His council is sought out by other clerics and he is venerated in his area.
At 7th level, he is a welcome councilor to heads of state, and he attracts supplicants and pilgrims seeking his miracles.
At 10th level, he is venerated by all as a saint. Kings and princes beg his favor and that of his deity.
At 15th level, he is involved with spiritual threats from or on other planes, and is recruited by the gods themselves to fight their battles.
At 20th level, he spends more time among the gods than among mortals, and possibly achieves his own apotheosis.
I could go on like this with other classes for some time. :)